{"product_id":"2940015917604","title":"Linux Journal November 2012","description":"A quick overview of what's in this special Python issue:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e * Intro to Salt Stack--the Python-Built Configuration Management System\u003cbr\u003e * Incorporate Python into Your Bash Workflow\u003cbr\u003e * Write Extensions for GlusterFS with Python\u003cbr\u003e * Extend PostgreSQL's Capabilities with PostGIS 2.0\u003cbr\u003e * Create Applications inside the Chrome Browser\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDetailed Overview: Indiana was the Dog's Name\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy wife is afraid of snakes. Actually, \"afraid\" may not be a big enough word.\u003cbr\u003eMy wife is terrifyingly and abundantly mortified of snakes. Like any good\u003cbr\u003ehusband, I remind her that Indiana Jones also was afraid of snakes, so she's in\u003cbr\u003egood company. This month, our issue is all about vipers--no, wait, Python.\u003cbr\u003eWhether you're a new programmer or an old coder, Python is flexible, cross-platform and really quite robust.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJoey Bernard gets the Python train rolling in our UpFront section. Sympy is a\u003cbr\u003elibrary for Python providing a full-featured computer algebra system.\u003cbr\u003eAlthough I\u003cbr\u003ehave no problem with my kids learning long division, there certainly are some\u003cbr\u003egreat advantages to using computers for complex maths.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReuven M. Lerner takes a trip into HTML5 land. He shows how to create Chrome\u003cbr\u003eextensions, which can be entire applications running inside your browser. With\u003cbr\u003eHTML5, CSS, JavaScript and so on, Chrome applications can be robust, complex and a\u003cbr\u003efar cry from the Web applications of just a few years ago. In fact, if you\u003cbr\u003erecall from last month, I use a Chrome extension for writing my Linux Journal\u003cbr\u003earticles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur other resident programmer is Dave Taylor, who teaches how to use SIGALARM\u003cbr\u003ein scripts to add valuable complexity to scripts that need it. That might\u003cbr\u003esound overwhelming, but Dave explains what he's doing along the way, and in the\u003cbr\u003eend, what seems like a complex and confusing idea makes sense. Speaking of\u003cbr\u003econfusing ideas, I had to do a double take when I read Kyle Rankin's article on\u003cbr\u003ehis new Android device. Yes, you read that right, Kyle uses Android. Like most\u003cbr\u003ethings Kyle does, however, it's more than just switching from his N900 to a new\u003cbr\u003ephone. He's never happy with just a phone; Kyle wants a communication device\u003cbr\u003ethat doubles as an International Space Station. This month, he comes close.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI haven't been happy with the lack of hate mail in my inbox recently, so I\u003cbr\u003ethought it would be a good time to write an article about Windows. Okay, to be\u003cbr\u003ehonest, it's a little more complicated than that, but I fully expect to get hate\u003cbr\u003email nonetheless! As a Linux user currently stuck in a job with a Windows\u003cbr\u003einfrastructure (not here at Linux Journal, of course), I'm working hard to feel\u003cbr\u003eas at home as possible. I share my struggles with you, and maybe make Windows a\u003cbr\u003elittle easier to deal with.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter my sacrilegious foray into the Windows world, Richard Delaney brings us\u003cbr\u003eback to topic with his article on replacing Bash scripts with Python. Since\u003cbr\u003eBash scripting is the only form of programming I ever do, I'm both hesitant and\u003cbr\u003eexcited about this topic. Learning a new language would be very beneficial for\u003cbr\u003eme, and if I can use it for the same purposes I use Bash, all the better!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGlusterFS is a fascinating distributed filesystem, which can scale to enormous\u003cbr\u003esize. If you're a Python programmer and want to add functionality to\u003cbr\u003eGlusterFS, Jeff Darcy's article is perfect. Integrating code across languages\u003cbr\u003ecan be a daunting task, but with the flexibility of Python, Jeff shows us it's\u003cbr\u003eworth the effort.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConfiguration management systems are all the rage. This is obviously because it\u003cbr\u003emakes managing large numbers of servers much easier to do. A part of me thinks\u003cbr\u003eit might be due to the funny sounding project names as well. Puppet and\u003cbr\u003eChef are both fairly well known, and thanks to their names, they're easy to remember.\u003cbr\u003eThis month, Ben Hosmer introduces us to a Python-based configuration management\u003cbr\u003etool named Salt Stack. Apparently having interesting names is a requirement\u003cbr\u003ein the configuration management world, and Salt Stack lives up to that. Does it\u003cbr\u003elive up to the functionality of its competition? Ben lets us know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStefano Iacovella finishes off this issue with PostGIS. PostgreSQL is a great\u003cbr\u003eopen-source database system, but for keeping track of spatial data (think\u003cbr\u003emaps), it really needs to run with an extension like PostGIS in order to handle\u003cbr\u003ethat type of stuff. Not only does PostGIS allow for complex mapping of spatial\u003cbr\u003edata, but it also can handle four-dimensional information as well. Good luck to\u003cbr\u003eIndiana Jones if he tries to follow a four-dimensional treasure map though. It's\u003cbr\u003ehard enough to keep track of snakes in three dimensions!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Shawn Powers","brand":"Linux Journal","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47100993011952,"sku":"2940015917604","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940015917604_p0.jpg?v=1763626622","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015917604","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}